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Cogeneration Power and Heat

Unread postPosted: Tue 01 Nov 2016, 12:04:32
by vtsnowedin
You can also capture the heat energy from the coolant and exhaust gasses and direct it to another task ,usually heating a building. It was said that a small block V8 gas engine 350 cubic in. displacement puts out enough waste heat to heat five houses.

Re: The Etp Model, Q & A

Unread postPosted: Tue 01 Nov 2016, 12:25:51
by Tanada
vtsnowedin wrote:You can also capture the heat energy from the coolant and exhaust gasses and direct it to another task ,usually heating a building. It was said that a small block V8 gas engine 350 cubic in. displacement puts out enough waste heat to heat five houses.


I doubt it would be 5 modern houses, but for the last couple decades the Antarctic Station uses diesel engines generators for their power grid and all the waste heat is cycled through interior radiators feeding the forced air heating system for the building. In the dark winter months they supplement with direct fuel burning to keep the building warm but my understanding is in the summer months the generators and body heat of the researchers provide the vast bulk of the heating.

The South Pole Power Plant, powered by AN8 Jet Fuel, is buried under the snow in the utility arches. It’s connected to the main station via the utility corridors, and then the “Beer Can” utility lift/stairway. The plant makes both power and heat for the station – power via conventional alternators attached to the giant engines, and heat as waste, extracted from the engines with a heat exchanger, and then pumped to warm the main station via glycol tubes.

https://www.jeffreydonenfeld.com/blog/2 ... wer-plant/

Re: The Etp Model, Q & A

Unread postPosted: Tue 01 Nov 2016, 15:52:04
by vtsnowedin
Tanada wrote:I doubt it would be 5 modern houses,

It might be pretty close. Average oil heated New England home uses 1000 gallons of heating oil a winter and a good furnace can have better then 85% efficiency but lets go with the heat from 1000 gallons.
A 350 V8 under a constant load will burn three gallons per hour (In your car doing 60 mph and getting 20 mpg for example) so 63 gallons per day times 180 days of the heating season adds up to 11,160 gallons. If we recover 40 % of the energy in that fuel as heat we would have the equivalent of 4464 gallons of fuel or 892 gallons for each of our five houses.

Re: The Etp Model, Q & A

Unread postPosted: Tue 01 Nov 2016, 16:02:33
by Tanada
vtsnowedin wrote:
Tanada wrote:I doubt it would be 5 modern houses,

It might be pretty close. Average oil heated New England home uses 1000 gallons of heating oil a winter and a good furnace can have better then 85% efficiency but lets go with the heat from 1000 gallons.
A 350 V8 under a constant load will burn three gallons per hour (In your car doing 60 mph and getting 20 mpg for example) so 63 gallons per day times 180 days of the heating season adds up to 11,160 gallons. If we recover 40 % of the energy in that fuel as heat we would have the equivalent of 4464 gallons of fuel or 892 gallons for each of our five houses.


Well if you are building the system to capture as much heat as possible you should be recovering more than 40 percent shouldn't you? Say you install the engine on an outside wall of your garage so any fumes do not intrude on your living space and just use the liquid cooling system. You run the glycol mix through a large truck radiator mounted in your air handler over your furnace. When the generator is operating your furnace blower runs at low speed cycling the air through the bonnet without having to burn any fuel directly in the furnace. Now the thing is for a regular home in a typical suburban neighborhood you don't need a V-8 to power your generator. Even a restaurant with a large walk in cooler only needs a dinky 2.0 liter inline 4, and most houses could get by with a 1 liter inline 3 like some motorcycles use. That might sound like moving the goal posts because you stipulated a V-8 5.5 liter (350 in^3) engine but I do think anything over a 2 liter would be serious overkill for most houses.

Re: The Etp Model, Q & A

Unread postPosted: Tue 01 Nov 2016, 16:11:14
by vtsnowedin
Tanada wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
Tanada wrote:I doubt it would be 5 modern houses,

It might be pretty close. Average oil heated New England home uses 1000 gallons of heating oil a winter and a good furnace can have better then 85% efficiency but lets go with the heat from 1000 gallons.
A 350 V8 under a constant load will burn three gallons per hour (In your car doing 60 mph and getting 20 mpg for example) so 63 gallons per day times 180 days of the heating season adds up to 11,160 gallons. If we recover 40 % of the energy in that fuel as heat we would have the equivalent of 4464 gallons of fuel or 892 gallons for each of our five houses.


Well if you are building the system to capture as much heat as possible you should be recovering more than 40 percent shouldn't you? Say you install the engine on an outside wall of your garage so any fumes do not intrude on your living space and just use the liquid cooling system. You run the glycol mix through a large truck radiator mounted in your air handler over your furnace. When the generator is operating your furnace blower runs at low speed cycling the air through the bonnet without having to burn any fuel directly in the furnace. Now the thing is for a regular home in a typical suburban neighborhood you don't need a V-8 to power your generator. Even a restaurant with a large walk in cooler only needs a dinky 2.0 liter inline 4, and most houses could get by with a 1 liter inline 3 like some motorcycles use. That might sound like moving the goal posts because you stipulated a V-8 5.5 liter (350 in^3) engine but I do think anything over a 2 liter would be serious overkill for most houses.

I only used the V8 because that was the example given to me back in 1971 when that was the most common engine size on the road. If you really needed to install a co-generation system you would of course size it to best meet your needs. That 350 Chevy would generate about $23,000 worth of electricity in six months at $ 0.15 a KWH so you would need a factory or something to need that much.

Re: The Etp Model, Q & A

Unread postPosted: Tue 01 Nov 2016, 16:37:24
by Subjectivist
Hey guys, if a 5.6 liter engine will heat 5 houses and an average house needs between a 1 & 2 liter engine then logic dictates a single liter engine should heat an average house.

Re: The Etp Model, Q & A

Unread postPosted: Tue 01 Nov 2016, 17:06:13
by vtsnowedin
Subjectivist wrote:Hey guys, if a 5.6 liter engine will heat 5 houses and an average house needs between a 1 & 2 liter engine then logic dictates a single liter engine should heat an average house.

Yes of course.
If I had to power a remote cabin I'd look at those light tower generators we use for night work on highway projects. Small diesel engine that is very quiet and they will run all weekend on a tank of fuel. Tap into the coolant line and let it circulate through some baseboard radiators and your all set.